


burned but not buried

by coraxes



Series: Author's Favorites [8]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Frenemies, Gen, Here Lies The Abyss fixit, Multi, Pre-Trespasser, can be read as pre-OT3, post-Inquisition
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-26
Updated: 2018-08-26
Packaged: 2019-07-02 15:39:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15799512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coraxes/pseuds/coraxes
Summary: Two old companions meet again in the Fade.  Ten years has changed them just enough."Oh, not her," Alistair said.





	burned but not buried

“Oh, not her,” Alistair said.

He looked pitiful, slumped against the green-grey rock of the fade and clutching a wound in his side.  His face was thinner than Morrigan remembered from their brief meeting at Skyhold, and dark blood crusted from his temple to his chin.  Still, he kept talking as Morrigan approached.  Ten years, it seemed, had not been sufficient to teach Alistair to shut his mouth.

“What are you really, then?  Can’t be the Nightmare demon, I know that one was dead.  S’pose you could be _a_ Nightmare, though—that would be just my luck.  No opinion?  Well, you can’t be Wrath, they don’t do disguises that well…”

Morrigan knelt next to him, eyebrows raised.  So he had learned something in the last decade, after all.

“…Desire, maybe?” he grimaced.  Whether from pain or his own statement Morrigan was unsure; either way, she refused to let it pass without comment.

“Truly, Alistair, I’d no idea you felt that way.  Does your paramour know?” 

He laughed.  It was a darker sound than the brassy noise she’d had to listen to around too many campfires.  “Oh, please, she’s still jealous I…”  Alistair blinked.  His eyes narrowed and truly focused on her for the first time.  “…Morrigan?”

“I am glad to know your eyes work, even if the same still cannot be said for your brain,” she said.

Instead of arguing with her, Alistair smiled, though it looked strained.  “We both know that never has.”  He shook his head.  “How are you here?  The Inquisitor—”

Would be hearing from Morrigan as soon as they returned to Skyhold.  She had been off hunting dragons with the Avvar or some such nonsense for weeks, which was probably best for them both.  “Inquisitor Cadash told me you were dead.  Luckily for you, my Eluvian showed me otherwise.  Would you prefer to discuss specifics or get out of here?”  Morrigan doubted Alistair had the patience or mental capacity to listen to her explanation of the Well of Sorrows’ knowledge, or the days she had spent convincing the Eluvian to allow her a direct portal into the Fade.

Alistair nodded, then winced.  Fresh blood trickled from a wound near his throat.  “Getting out of here sounds like an excellent idea, but my legs don’t seem to be listening to me.”

Morrigan frowned.  He looked…unfortunate.  Potions could only do so much before the body’s reserves were overwhelmed, and she was no healer.  Still, she did not have to get Alistair into peak condition; she only had to get him out of the Fade alive.  Wordlessly she uncorked a flask of healing potion and handed it to him. 

Alistair downed it in a few gulps.  “Give me a moment,” he said. “How long has it been?”

“Two months,” said Morrigan.  Alistair scanned her face as if searching for a lie there; finding none, he nodded and rubbed his eyes.  “You will be pleased to know that the wardens have begun to recover, with the inquisition’s assistance.  Corypheus is also no longer a threat.”

He shoved himself into a sitting position.  The Silverite studs in his armor scraped across the stone.  “What about—has the inquisition heard from Cora?”

Morrigan frowned.  “Inquisitor Cadash also wrote to her after returning from the Western Approach.  If she has responded, I daresay I would have noticed.” 

Despite having not talked to the woman in a decade, Morrigan was fairly certain that unless she was shortly informed of her husband’s survival, Cora Amell’s next correspondence with the inquisition would be tearing down its front gates. 

He grinned.  “You would, at that.  Maker, she’ll be pissed off.  ‘No dying while we’re apart,’ she told me, ‘we go together or not at all.’  A bit dramatic, if you ask me, but you remember Cora.”

The corner of Morrigan’s mouth twitched up without her permission.  “Time has not changed her, it seems.”

“Oh, no more than any of us,” Alistair said.  He closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the stone.

Morrigan allowed him a moment to recover his strength.  They had time, after all.  She had asked Leliana to make sure Kieran was looked after in the event her absence lasted more than an hour or two.  While the spymaster did not trust her, there were some bonds that ran deeper than trust. 

“Can you stand?” she asked once the wound on his side seemed to have closed.

Alistair nodded and started to rise, cursing virulently under his breath.  Morrigan smothered a grin.  Ten years ago, he had always looked around in fear after each swear word, as if expecting a Revered Mother to swoop down and smack him with a copy of the Chant.  Morrigan rose with him, holding out an arm.  He frowned and his eyes flickered from her outstretched hand to her face.  “…What are you doing?”

“Offering to help.  It is customary to offer one’s thanks in reponse,” she said pointedly. 

“Not just that.  Why are you even here, Morrigan?  For _me_?” 

“Your lack of trust stings, Alistair, truly,” she said, injecting the words with as much sarcasm as she could muster.  Even if she did mean it, a bit.  Morrigan had made her intentions clear enough the night before they ended the Blight—and hadn’t she kept to her word?  Kieran had grown to be a happy, healthy, and now perfectly _normal_ boy, and her friend had survived more or less intact.  Though reportedly with one fewer limb, which was hardly Morrigan’s fault.  “The portal is this way.”  She nudged at Alistair’s arm, trying to turn him back the way she had come.

“No, I mean,” he began, and broke off with a grimace.  His hand rested on her shoulder; Morrigan braced herself against the extra weight.  “Why for _me_?  I was under the impression you wouldn’t spit on me if I were on fire.  And that you’d be the one setting the fire if given the chance. I did deserve some of that, mind, I know I was a bit of a prick to you, but…”

Well, it was decent of him to admit it.  Morrigan considered her words for a long moment.  Though the Eluvian’s portal was in sight, with Alistair’s current condition they would not reach it for some time.  “The year we spent travelling set my life on a different path.  Cora in particular I owe for that, and for leaving her afterwards, though it was not a choice freely made.  And I am indebted to you for Kieran.”

“Oh.”  Alistair took a deep breath, eyes focusing ahead on the portal.  He really seemed to be less annoying now, though Morrigan was not sure whether age had truly changed him or if she had only grown more accommodating.  It was hard to detest the man when she saw him in Kieran’s face every day. 

“Though I didn’t realize Cora was jealous.  She seemed to be much more reasonable than you at the time, as I remember it.”  The warden had always been pragmatic, from her use of blood magic to her fondness for recruiting allies Morrigan would far prefer to abandon—she probably would have taken on Loghain, had Alistair not been so against it.  When Morrigan had told Cora what she needed for her ritual, she had only nodded, asked a few questions, and then marched off to convince her paramour. 

The morning after, she had found Morrigan alone and hugged her while Morrigan’s arms hung stiffly at her sides.  “Thank you for trying to save us,” she had said, and kissed her on the cheek.  “I know you need to seem above it all, but this can’t have been easy for you, either.”  Like many of Cora’s affectionate gestures, it had left Morrigan feeling oddly comforted and condescended to at once.

Alistair choked.  “Oh, she wasn’t jealous of _you._ ”

It took a moment for Morrigan to understand the implication.  She’d known the warden liked women as well, but— “Ah,” she said faintly.

He chuckled.  “I’m surprised you didn’t notice.  Everyone noticed.  _Wynne_ noticed—she was quite concerned for me, you know, with Cora being so blatant.”

She had no idea how to respond to that.  Morrigan had known of women who liked others’ company, but her upbringing with Flemeth had left her utterly unprepared for that reality.  It wasn’t until years after Kieran was born that she even recognized the capability in herself.  “I…see.”

“Well, you’re easier to fluster than I remembered,” said Alistair.  Then he staggered, foot catching on a stray stone, and nearly brought Morrigan down with him. 

“You are even less competent than I remembered,” she snapped back, face warm.  “Have you forgotten how to walk?”

He scowled back at her.  “ _You_ try walking when you haven’t eaten anything but demon guts and dream food for two damned months.”  Alistair straightened, this time draping his arm across her shoulders.  Morrigan wrapped hers around his waist in response, fingers curling into a damp patch of fabric under the newly-healed gash.  “Don’t you know any spells to make this easier?  Something that could let me float or maybe add a couple of pints of blood back in…”

Morrigan didn’t dignify that with an answer, either.  “It’s not far back to Skyhold.”

“Lovely,” he said.  “Maker’s breath, I miss Amaranthine.  So many fewer Orlesians there.”

Strange.  Morrigan had heard of Amaranthine, of course, but she had never visited; there was too much of a chance that she would be recognized.  Another reminder of how their lives had diverged.

As they drew nearer to the portal she worried at her lip.  “Kieran and I—” she began, and stopped.

“What?”

Morrigan took a deep breath.  It had been herself and her son for so long.  “Years ago, I left because I believed it was the only way to keep all of us safe from Flemeth.  She has recently proven that staying in hiding is no longer necessary.”  Because she could find Morrigan and command her to do her bidding at any time—though Morrigan could save that explanation for later.  “…Kieran is curious about you.  Cora, as well.”

“That’s…good,” Alistair said.  “Does he know?  About me?”

Shrugging with an armored arm slung around her shoulders was difficult; still, Morrigan prevailed.  “He suspects something, but I have never told him directly.  He isn’t _lacking,_ ” she added, because no matter how much they had had to hide, she had _always_ been there for her son, always tried to be what he needed.  “But some curiosity is natural.  And as having company outside my mother was quite important for _me_ , I believe ‘tis necessary for him, as well.”

“Are you asking to join Cora and me?” Alistair said, surprisingly not sounding horrified by the thought.  He lurched to a stop; Morrigan looked up and realized they were right in front of the portal.  Stupid of her not to notice. 

“Perhaps,” said Morrigan.  Perhaps that was why she had taken it upon herself to do this in the first place.  Long ago she had tired of running, and now she had no excuse to continue.  She could never settle down in a Ferelden forest and content herself with being the subject of narrow-minded villagers’ tall tales.  Nor could she dedicate herself to a cause like the inquisition; Morrigan appreciated its noble aims, but she had no use for them.  But this… “I hear you are searching for a way to end the Calling.  You may have heard I used to be a Witch of the Wilds; I have some experience with very old, very dark magic.”

Alistair turned a strange, searching look upon her, and Morrigan’s stomach lurched.  There had never truly been love lost between them.  Perhaps any camaraderie she had sensed was only on her side; Morrigan hardly had much experience with ordinary friendships—

“I suppose we might find a use for you, then,” said Alistair, and gestured to the portal.  “Now that that’s settled, let’s _go._ What time was it when you left?  D’you think there will be any scones left over?”

“You are a _child,_ ” said Morrigan.

“Yeah, I don’t know why I’ve missed you either,” he said with a lopsided smile.  He must have picked that up from Cora. She had always been able to hear what Morrigan wasn’t saying. 

Morrigan rolled her eyes and dragged Alistair through the portal.

**Author's Note:**

> So...this is kind of a love letter to my time in Dragon Age fandom. I haven't written fic for it in a long time, and I doubt I will again any time soon. The franchise, especially _Origins_ , was so important to me in so many different ways--as a writer, as a closeted queer kid, as a depressed freshman with no friends. Every now and then I will start up a game and then quit ten minutes in as I realize the magic has kinda left them, for me. 
> 
> But Morrigan and Alistair (and Cora Amell, the first warden I ever loved) will always be my favorites. And in my head they will forever walk out of that portal and slowly turn into the most powerful power throuple Thedas has ever seen.
> 
> Comments and kudos are, as always, excellent.


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